Discussion

   The benefits of hydraulic fracturing are significant: local and regional economic benefits of increased employment and tax revenue, less expenditure on international oil, less hostility abroad by shifting exploitation of resources from foreign countries to the United States, and less post-extraction pollution as the consumption of natural gas is regarded as the most efficient, and least polluting fossil fuel.⁷  Judging by just these benefits, it makes perfect sense to increase domestic extraction of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing.  However, it is clear that the burden it places on the environment and its resources is far too great to ignore.

    This report finds a correlation between hydraulic fracturing and vegetation losses, as well as an increase in temperature near the well sites. However, these findings are not revolutionary, as building fossil fuel infrastructure always involves replacing vegetation with roads and wells. Furthermore, environmental degradation has been occurring in this area for well over a century due to fossil fuel extraction. Many of these foothills have been previously carved out by conventional drilling and its infrastructure, so, in many places, there was little vegetation for new drilling to affect.

    The real environmental issue surrounding hydraulic fracturing is not loss of local vegetation, but the effects this process has on local groundwater, which is tough for remote sensing analysis to tackle on its own. Combining the findings of this report with groundwater analysis through geographic information systems (GIS) software will strengthen its results.

A supporting report on this issue (Pulice 2012) can be found here.

    The combination of these two reports paints a vivid picture of the local costs in vegetation loss and groundwater contamination due to hydraulic fracturing in the hills of Ventura County. Before allowing further extraction to take place, local governments and their residents must consider these costs alongside gas extraction’s largely economic benefits. If the economic benefits outweigh the environmental costs, hydraulic fracturing may find a home in Ventura County. However, if the costs outweigh the benefits, the public must make a statement that they value their natural natural resources over the possible economic benefits of drilling.

    Rather than trying to paint an ugly picture of the oil industry and the hydraulic fracturing process, this report’s purpose is to clearly lay out the costs of fracking in terms of vegetation losses. Combined with the 2012 Pulice report on fracking’s groundwater implications, residents and government officials in Ventura County will have the resources to make educated decisions on the future of their gas industry. Future watershed analysis and surface and groundwater testing may hold the key to making the correct decisions on this issue. If this report accomplishes anything, it should be used as a tool for Ventura County’s locals to inform themselves on this complex, and largely opaque issue.